SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

WH travels frequently for business. Due to baggage I brought to the marriage, it always scared me that he would use it as an opportunity to cheat, but I made a deliberate effort all these years not to mistrust him because of other men in my life. So now, it turns out he saw business travel as the perfect opportunity to cheat. God help me. It's the worst scenario come true. He will always have to travel for work. There can be no transparency because he uses a work cell and laptop. No communication on demand because of time zones (global travel). There is simply no security for me, and anyway I'm not interested in being a warden. Lots of reassurances from him, but I know he is a cheater and a convincing liar. How have others handled the inability to know where wayward is and what they are doing for days and weeks at a time?

Hi Tripletrouble,

We have an ongoing thread in this forum dealing with business travel. I'm going to find it and bump it to the top for you.

Man, I don't know. WH doesn't travel often but a couple of times a year he does. His next trip is in September and I could throw up thinking about getting through it. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this so often.

I have been on a few trips out of the country with spotty or no contact. It was nerve wracking.

One thing your WH could do is keep a detailed journal while he is away. What he is doing, thinking feeling, at all hours of the day with supporting time stamp pictures and share with you when he gets home.

It won't help in the moment but it could help for future trips.

I am starting to see that it is not what my fWS does specifically to help me feel safe. It is more seeing the willingness to try that builds my trust.

My fWH's A took place when I was led to believe he was away on business. His work travel is obviously a HUGE trigger for me.

It was eating me alive, I would start stressing the day before he had to travel (he's unavoidably away for a night almost weekly) and I would work myself into a frenzy of anxiety and panic... it was really unhealthy.

After one particularly bad night I realised it had to stop, what I was going through could in no way be called reconciliation! I gave it a lot of thought and came to the conclusion that if I am going to have any sort of happiness in this marriage I have to make a decision to trust fWH when he says he is away on business, I can't be fretting, stressing, wondering if he is lying etc etc - because the fact is, that unless I physically follow him on his travels how will I ever REALLY know if he is where he says he is, doing what he says he's doing... It boils down to the fact that if my decision is to stay married to him, then I have to also decide to trust him when he travels.

That very night I made the decision that I am going to trust him, I am going to take his word for it. It's been a couple of months now and honestly, I feel SO much better and it has really improved our relationship too.

Of course I still have twinges of anxiety, but I talk myself through it. fWH is being a star about all of this too, he knows how hard it's been for me and he goes out of his way to reassure me - he always gives me the phone number of the hotel and his room number the minute he checks in and then I phone him during the evening and we have looooong chats on the phone, sometimes more than once in the evening. He orders room service for dinner and usually take a pic of his food and sends it to me on my phone, so I can see what he's eating. In the morning he phones me first thing to say good morning. It makes things much more bearable!

[This message edited by ItsaClimb at 10:15 AM, August 1st (Thursday)]

Triple...

Your story hits me hard. My hubbies job was the avenue in which his A came into our lives. He traveled internationally, weekly for 20 years and he only recently learned how hard it was for me to trust him all that time. He fell into the A trap at the very end of that job but she was enticing enough, and he felt far enough away from ever having an intimate marriage with me again, that he eventually took the bait.

I think, the fact that I had had to weather such hardship to not think about what he could run into all those years, was the single biggest reason I cratered so hard when I finally found out about A.

Thankfully, he no longer works at that job, has no contact with that snake and we now live in a new house in a new country. But, I have told him often had all this not changed, his gig would have been up anyway because the kids had left and I was about to start traveling with him everywhere.

I am guessing you do not have the ability to go with him. I agree with the ideas on here. Somehow you need to come up with a strategy that makes you more comfortable while he is away. I personally would approach him and honestly describe how you feel when he travels....how it makes you feel...does it make you physically sick with worry? I would also add the why to it....why I get sick is because I am so scared someone will approach you.

I was never worried about my husbands behavior while he was traveling....it was the other damn snakes in the grass with their agendas I worried about. You know the ones....the girls who work out in the gym preparing for their next conquest!!! In my case my worst nightmare came true as well. My hubbies OW is a narcissistic, delusional control freak who was about to be served papers from her current H and went looking for someone to replace him. Enter my hubby. Travel made access simple and oh boy did she use that to her advantage. My WH didn't fall very easily and it took over a year for him to finally lose his grip on reality and jump in to her sick fantasy. He feels so deceived and lied too and he should. She is a nasty piece of work but of course she never showed him that side of her. For my hubby it was all roses all the time...a dream come true for any man! Now that he is dealing with her delusions in broad daylight he is horrified that he was ever that gullible. Hell, I know more about this cow now then he does which has taken him to an all time low.

Sorry for getting off topic. Your post just hit a nerve.

Map out a plan and involve your hubby. With an honest explanation of your fears I am sure you two can come up with something that benefits both of you. He might also be worried about leaving if you are still in an unstable state.

T

[This message edited by TxsT at 10:08 AM, August 1st (Thursday)]

Thank you for the thoughtful replies. There is just no easy answer to this. A little background - WH joined AFF to find women when he traveled. Would text and call them before he left for that city so that he would have contacts when he got there. I wanted to die when I learned this. Swears he never actually met any of them. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I did catch him in time. But regardless he was sexting with dozens of other women constantly. When I realized I had been sending him cute pics of our kids, pets, whatever while he was traveling - but that he would be disappointed when it was just something from me and not some pic of some stranger's coochie - well, let's just say I had an anxiety attack so severely I couldn't breathe. I can't tell you how many tears I shed over that thought.

I guess my analogy would be spending 20 years getting over a fear of dogs. Then getting mauled. By your own dog.

Big shit sandwich for Triple.

So sorry. I know that sounds trite. We are all sorry, right? BS's have lots of issues to deal with. Sorry sometimes seems so lame, but I mean it honestly.

At any rate, someone once suggested to me that fWH could sleep with his facetime or video phone starting at 6pm and lasting until 6am. Not that this doesn't give other ample opportunities, but I think this might help...